Trash collectors surprise neighborhood dog with Christmas gift

— -- Lucky the dog is having a very merry Christmas this year.

Her owners’ trash collectors, Orlando Ippolito and Otis Williams, surprised Lucky with a Christmas gift: A personalized ornament, along with a touching card.

“Lucky is always our favorite. We always look forward to Lucky,” Ippolito, of Midland Park, New Jersey, told ABC News.

The trash collectors quickly bonded with Lucky, who was adopted by Bobbe Kutcha after her previous dog died.

“We always used to see the owner of Lucky walking their previous dog,” Orlando recalled. “We would always say ‘hi,’ and then all of a sudden we didn’t see her and always wondered what happened. She said she lost the dog, and we felt really bad for her. She was really upset. It was really sad.”

But then Ippolito and Williams saw her walking Lucky “and they were all really happy,” he added. “Over time we started to give Lucky treats, and now she looks forward to us coming to the house all the time. She hears the truck coming.”

Kutcha said she was touched by her trash collectors’ kind gesture.

“There is nothing like our garbage men. They are absolutely unbelievable,” she said. “They are just the best. It’s unbelievable that two people would take such an interest in this pup and how they care for her. It’s amazing for me.”

But Ippolito said, “It’s just what I do.”

“It’s just being nice to somebody,” he said. “They’re nice people, and you just want to be nice to them. I [was] always taught when I was young that if you’re nice to somebody, they’ll be nice to somebody, and then it will pass on, and everybody will be nice to each other.”

Kutcha said Lucky was given her name because she was to have been put down within the hour at a pound in Texas but was saved at the last minute and taken to the Northeast, where Kutcha fell in love with her.

“I said, ‘Lucky, you’re going to be proud because you’re going to a nice home,” Williams recalled of the first time he met Lucky. “Lucky has the right name because she walks around always happy now.”